Legendary singer,poet,film-maker and storyteller Bhupen Hazarikas birthday  he would have been 86 this year

Legendary singer,poet,film-maker and storyteller Bhupen Hazarikas birthday  he would have been 86 this year  was celebrated across Assam on Saturday for the first time since his passing. The maestro died in November last year and his birthday was marked with musical programmes in various places,while chief minister Tarun Gogoi announced that his government would institute an award in Hazarikas name. At Sadiya,Hazarikas birthplace,Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh told a gathering that he would impress upon the Centre to name an upcoming bridge on the Brahmaputra there after the Bard of the Brahmaputra.

Arunachal soccer dreams get reading boost

No sooner had Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Nabam Tuki identified football as one sport in which young men and women from the state could excel than he found an interesting partner far away in the UK. Reading Football Club has come forward to groom promising Arunachali footballers,promising Tuki last weekend that it would send two coaches to the state at its own cost. Selected players would then be flown to the UK where they would not only get exposure to big-time soccer but also possibly make it to the big league. Reading FC incidentally has one good reason to show an interest in Arunachal Pradesh; one of its advisers,Tomo Nomuk,a footballer of yesteryear,is an Arunachali now settled in the UK.

Meghalayas railway hope finally on track

After several decades of resistance from local groups,Meghalaya will finally have a place on the railway map of the country. Chief Minister Mukul Sangma last Saturday laid the foundation stone of the hill states first railway station that would come up at Mendipathar in the Garo Hills,with officials of Northeast Frontier Railway expecting the first railway engine to chug into the state by the beginning of 2013. While Mendipathar will be connected to the Guwahati-New Bongaigaon mainline at Dudhnoi,the railways have set a target of 2018 to complete another project that will connect Guwahati with Byrnihat in the Khasi Hills,a line that will subsequently go up to Shillong.

Smuggling on top of Tripuras border worries

The Border Security Force and its counterpart Bangladesh Border Guards last week jointly identified 115 stretches along the border as vulnerable in respect of increasing criminal movements in both directions. Border guards of both countries last week analysed various intelligence inputs and took note of movement of smugglers and criminals. Both sides have decided to set up more outposts along the border. Tripura shares 856 km of the Indo-Bangla border that runs into 4,095 km in five states. It was only on Saturday that the BSF intercepted 3,300 bottles of phensedyl  a banned cough syrup – worth about Rs 26 lakh from a potato-laden truck heading for Bangladesh.